Hey there. Let me ask you a question. Would you drive eight hours to see someone for 10 seconds? Okay, now let me modify that question. Would you drive eight hours to see someone for 10 seconds, if you could only see them from a distance of 15 feet? Would you still drive up and down? What if I additionally told you that the roads were hilly and tortuous, full of wily hairpin bends, and had ambulances on standby 24X7 as accidents were not infrequent? And that going by train took double the time (16 hours for the same 10 second sighting) and that going by flight was prohibitively expensive? Would you still undertake the visit?
Okay, now let me really up the ante. Suppose it wasn't a person you were visiting. Suppose it was a chunk of stone. A carving, to be precise. A very beautifully chiselled and nicely decorated carving, nonetheless, though let me add that photographs of it are widely available, starting at 5 bucks.
Fine, fine. You say I'm being too one-sided, so let me give you the scoop. This stone carving is said to be magical. (Some people say so. Others don't.)
Would you still drive eight hours to see it for the blink of an eye and be yelled at and thrust aside almost immediately? And lets assume you DID go once, for novelty's sake. Would you keep going back there over and over again?
(This is an amateur attempt at trying to reason like Carl Sagan in his brilliant Invisible Dragon essay)
(Tirupati is visited by well over 50,000 people in a single day. It has 12 tonnes of gold in the temple treasury alone, and Hundi collections during festivals routinely exceed Rs. 1 crore in a single day)
Okay, now let me really up the ante. Suppose it wasn't a person you were visiting. Suppose it was a chunk of stone. A carving, to be precise. A very beautifully chiselled and nicely decorated carving, nonetheless, though let me add that photographs of it are widely available, starting at 5 bucks.
Fine, fine. You say I'm being too one-sided, so let me give you the scoop. This stone carving is said to be magical. (Some people say so. Others don't.)
Would you still drive eight hours to see it for the blink of an eye and be yelled at and thrust aside almost immediately? And lets assume you DID go once, for novelty's sake. Would you keep going back there over and over again?
(This is an amateur attempt at trying to reason like Carl Sagan in his brilliant Invisible Dragon essay)
(Tirupati is visited by well over 50,000 people in a single day. It has 12 tonnes of gold in the temple treasury alone, and Hundi collections during festivals routinely exceed Rs. 1 crore in a single day)
